Schokokeks
Enlightened
I'd agree that I think Convoy is kind of the best for casual flashlights. I get a bunch of AA ones to try out CCT's and different emitters, before buying them in more expensive, U.S. made lights. They're perfectly serviceable for around-the-house use, and casual walks. I think I'd agree with you that I wouldn't rely on one, though. I probably wouldn't go hiking in the woods with a Convoy as my only light. I've seen people on the internet talking about carrying a Convoy for "self defense," and that absolutely blows my mind... I think it's fair to say I love Convoy (these days, they're really about the only Chinese brand I tend to buy from).I ordered a Convoy M21F with XHP70.2 LED and Liitokala 21700 cell at the end of last year. It arrived at the start of this year. The machining is immaculate, the anodising is perfect and it produces a wall of light with incredibly good regulation and runtimes. It doesn't match my Sunwayman, Olight and Jetbeam lights as the anodising is not HA III and the watersealing is mediocre, but in all other respects it's a steal. I asked a question before purchase and the response was prompt and informative.
If I needed a torch to leave in my car glove box, or for poking around in the attic, I would buy Convoy not a name brand. If I needed a torch for long distance walking or running at night, I'd use a name brand. That said, I had two Sunwayman's fail, one was just sitting in a cupboard, one was dropped.
My understanding is that shipping from China is cheap because of an agreement among developed countries to ship from developing countries at low price, in order to encourage their growth. I personally think we should stop doing this with China as they are developed.
One of my Sunwayman torches failed within warranty so I sent it to China at not insignificant expense. It was repaired and returned free of charge. It's not worth it with Convoy. I ordered some fairly small replacement parts for a coffee grinder from Taiwan, the shipping was about £24 or $30.
I think you're describing the situation with The Universal Postal Union, and how China can send small parcels internationally as part of the postal reciprocity, but it costs them less because they're a "developing nation" (as the agreement was last redone in the 60's). They started as a net receiver, but are now a net sender (the opposite was true for the States).
There was a row over this here in the States, so I think things are now different for us (as per usual, haha), and I think that's where I read something about the CCP essentially footing the bill directly to keep it shipping to the U.S. cheap, but they do NOT do so for the reverse (so, shipping TO China from the U.S. is really expensive). For the CCP, it keeps sites like Ali up and running. If shipping for all their small, cheap crap was more normalized, I don't think anyone in the U.S. would be buying from Ali, Temu, or Wish for their "bread and butter," which is cheap Chinese do-dads.
At least in the U.S., part of our issue is often an expectation of free shipping, set by Amazon, though I know that their free shipping has been a big driver of Amazon's struggle with turning a profit on their retail side (most of their profit has historically come from stuff like AWS), so Ali, Temu, and Wish really need free or low cost shipping to get any traffic.
From my limited reading, it seems like the Commonwealth/Eurozone is essentially still in the same situation with the UPU that the States used to be; you guys are essentially subsidizing those shipments from China.